Congress sends Russia sanctions to Trump's desk, daring a veto

The Senate on Thursday delivered Donald Trump the first big bipartisan rebuke of his presidency, giving final approval to a package of sanctions on Russia, Iran, and North Korea that constrains his bid to defrost relations with Moscow.

The Senate voted 98-2 to approve the sanctions bill that cleared the House earlier this week. Trump must now decide whether to sign a measure that allows Congress to block any attempt to ease or end penalties against Vladimir Putin's government and imposes new sanctions in response to a Russian electoral disruption campaign that the president continues to dispute.

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The House passed the sanctions package on Tuesday in an overwhelming 419-3 vote, and an intra-GOP squabble that threatened to delay its passage was quickly resolved Wednesday night.

The White House has avoided taking a clear position on the sanctions legislation all week, with communications director Anthony Scaramucci telling CNN on Thursday that Trump "may sign the sanctions exactly the way they are, or he may veto the sanctions and negotiate an even tougher deal against the Russians."

If Trump does decide to veto the bill, Congress has shown it could easily override him.

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In stark contrast to the partisan warfare that has marked the health care debate, senior Republicans and Democrats paid tribute to their counterparts across the aisle Thursday for cooperation on the sanctions bill.

"This bill has taken passion, tenacity and all of us working together to bring out the best in this body,"Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee said on the floor before the bill's final passage.

The only no votes on the bill wereKentucky Republican Rand Paul and Vermont independent Bernie Sanders.

Corker also hailed the congressional oversight language that the White House had resisted as a bid by lawmakers to grow "more and more relevant, to garner back the powers we have given to the executive branch."

Corker, a longtime ally of the Trump administration, said he has talked to both the president and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson about the sanctions bill in recent days and "gotten no indication from them that they plan to veto it."

"It's just not a good way to start a presidency to veto something and then be soundly overridden," Corker told reporters. "It wouldn't be something I would do, but they may choose to do it."